Eberron's Worth...

[Glyfair]

People who say that sci-fi and fantasy don't (or shouldn't) mix obviously haven't read a lot of fantasy.

Especially a lot of mid-20th century fantasy. Authors used to disguise their fantasy as science fiction so they could be published with a decent paycheck. Fantasy rarely got published, and usually only in fringe publications (even compared to science fiction) that wouldn't pay much.

However, I do have sympathy for the people who dislike mixing them (as compared to thinking it shouldn't be done). I think it will take huge raving reviews for me to read another fantasy story where modern day people end up in an RPG setting playing their characters.

 

[Someone]

I found some time ago that I made much more interesting Eberron modules if I imagine I'm not writing a D&D one, but a mixture of Feng-Shui and Shadowrun.

The setting stikes me as being specifically designed for over the top action, hence the Feng Shui part. You can fight on a train floating on lighning, on a flying ship, on top of one of the many floating towers, on narrow canyons, or on top of the nose of a giant face carved on a mountain, or being washed away by a sudden flood on a sewer. If you design a Eberron module, avoid the 20 ftx20 ft room with no features at all costs.

The setting is full of shady or downright evil corporations (Houses, emeral claw...). Churches aren't a source of certainty, since a spellcasting cleric of the silver flame can be a chaotic evil bastard or a religious zealot. In other words, PCs can only trust themselves. And you have all the weird technology everywhere, the races normally considered evil as valid PC races, and generally the lack of a sense of Good Vs Evil. Eberron has all of that in common with Shadowrun.

 

[Mouseferatu]

The setting is full of shady or downright evil corporations (Houses, emeral claw...). Churches aren't a source of certainty, since a spellcasting cleric of the silver flame can be a chaotic evil bastard or a religious zealot. In other words, PCs can only trust themselves. And you have all the weird technology everywhere, the races normally considered evil as valid PC races, and generally the lack of a sense of Good Vs Evil. Eberron has all of that in common with Shadowrun.

For many months, now, I've wanted to run an Eberron campaign where the Dragonmarked Houses have become, essentially, distopian mega-corporations, completely pulling the strings of what remains of the national governments. Adventuring parties are very much hired on as Shadowrunner-type operatives.

I call the concept Khyber-Punk.

 

[shilsen]

I love the modern societal feel of Eberron. I think it is by far the defining characteristic. I think embracing magic as technology rather than some obscure, guarded, secret club is a wonderful change. To paraphrase Clarke & Niven, sufficiently advanced technology and magic are indistinguishable from one another. As for warforged, I view them more akin to Frankenstein's monster than a robot from Asimov. Robotic creation was very deliberate and controlled. Warforged creation is very mysterious and not understood.

I think medieval fantasy works better with subtle magic, mysterious and enigmatic races, strange feral monsters and a predominantly human world. D&D is a far cry from that. The idea of Merlin or Gandalf lobbing a fire-ball is absurd. The game mechanics give rise to a much more modern feel for me.

This is one of the many, many big selling points of Eberron for me. From the time I started playing D&D, I always had trouble with the big disjunction (for me, at least) between the pseudo-medieval world of the default setting and the rules, which implied a very different world with some significantly modern aspects. I would add a lot of things in my own games which weren't house rules so much as applications of the rules to the world and the societies which they worked within.

Eberron, for me, did a lot of the things I already had in play, and did them very effectively. It not only considered the effect of magic on society, but also created a world/history/society that has some significant resemblances to ours and some huge differences. Which, for me, is always the way to go. From a gaming perspective, we need similarities between a setting and our own world to be able to grasp it. And we need significant differences, since any fictional setting, not having experienced our specific history and having significant components that don't exist in our world, should develop differently. Eberron could have done that combination a lot of different ways, of course, and in some areas doesn't go as far as I'd like it to have, but it definitely does so more than any setting I've encountered, and enough for me to really enjoy it.

 

[wayne62682]

You missed the subtleness of it. They are clannish. Have deep codes of honor. Control the banking and much of the wealth. Obsessed with treasure. Easily offended.

They're the Eberron MAFIA!

Heh.. I always thought the Mafia in Eberron were the Boromar Clan in Sharn.

I would also like to apologize for the harshness of my earlier post. It was a bit bitter and really didn't contribute anything to the discussion. I was in a pretty bad mood from reading a post on the Wizards board that basically was what I complained about in the post (Standard "We didn't need Eberron, they should have brought back Planescape/Dark Sun/Greyhawk/Mystara/etc." rant) and I let it bleed into my post here.

I'm also glad to see I'm not the only one who has thought of a D&D-Shadowrun mix with Eberron. I also like how Eberron changed the notion of "monsters are evil and must be killed". Now if the damn LA system just worked well, I'd gladly add Hobgoblins and the like to the list of "allowed" races.

 

[Shadeydm]

Brithright>Eberron
It would have been a much better direction than trains, planes and automatons.

 

[Imaro]

I was really into Eberron when it first came out, but after a while it became kind of Meh to me. Some of my problems were

1.)action points:These things are so rare and so weak as to almost be a non-issue in getting PC's to do heroics.

2.)The direction the supplemental books took. I don't understand why we have books on Sarlona, Xendrik, etc. and no book to finish Khorvaire(Valenar, the monster kingdoms,etc.)

3.) The kitchen sink type setting, which I know you don't have to use everything, but I like a little more focus in my settings.

4.) I don't get a dark fantasy feel from Eberron, or really a noir(in the classic sense) feeling either. To me it's really pulp and I'm not a big fan. YMMV of course.

I guess that's why I started trading my books off, switched to IK and haven't reallly looked back.

 

[JeffB]

Tangential:

I've seen some people say that the D&D rules don't fit your typical "medieval" type campaign setting, and that there were more modern aspects of the rules that fit well in with eberron.

Are we strictly discussing 3.x here? Or are we talking various versions?

3.X I can understand, but I don't get that feeling from the brown books, AD&D or Basic/Expert from Holmes or Moldvay/Cook. Perhaps a couple of artifacts may give a more modernistic "spin" and of course S3. But I don't really see it in the rules. ]

When I crack open the 1E PHB/DMG/MM or Holmes basic for example, I'm not seeing/reading much in the way of "modernistic". At all.

I think as the game progressed and got into the 1990s, there were some more modern elements "leaked" into the game through various items on the equipment lists, adventures, and campaign material. But still not sure where the modernistic bent was in the 2E corebooks either?

 

[Vocenoctum]

Brithright>Eberron
It would have been a much better direction than trains, planes and automatons.

I'm an Eberron fan, but I also like Greyhawk. That said, I think Eberron ties into the 3.5 ruleset better than GH or FR, though it's not a big difference. I enjoyed bouts of Spelljammer, Planescape and Ravenloft, with even a little Darksun. those 4 settings really don't have a "generic" capability though, they're too strictly defined for general appeal IMO. As for Birthright, it's one of those settings that never really did much when it WAS published I think, so I can't possibly see it ever coming back.

I think FR and GH overlap enough that having both is probably redundant, and FR has the book franchise to give it a lead. Eberron is different enough without excluding normal D&D, and I think that's a selling point.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I was really into Eberron when it first came out, but after a while it became kind of Meh to me. Some of my problems were

1.)action points:These things are so rare and so weak as to almost be a non-issue in getting PC's to do heroics.

I tend to hoard them, so I don't spend them a lot. I think the real limit to AP is the rate of refreshing. If you level often you'll see them used more, if you don't they'll probably be forgotten more (either for hording or burning through).

If the players know that they'll be leveling soon, you'll get a bit more work out of them.

I think AP are a good start, but could use an expansion.

2.)The direction the supplemental books took. I don't understand why we have books on Sarlona, Xendrik, etc. and no book to finish Khorvaire(Valenar, the monster kingdoms,etc.)

I think they're avoiding getting too specific about the fringe elements. I imagine the elves will get covered at some point though. (Dragons are up next.)

3.) The kitchen sink type setting, which I know you don't have to use everything, but I like a little more focus in my settings.

<snip>

I guess that's why I started trading my books off, switched to IK and haven't reallly looked back.

One of the first major turnoffs for me with IK was the lack of gnomes. Not even just their absence though, but some comments I'd seen that basically said "we took out gnomes because gnomes are silly". Sort of like Monte Cook's AU/AE comment about including a short race for the short race folks. I found the comments offensive by themselves in the style they were presented, but it also seemed to exclude what some people want, simply because of the writers personal issues.

I certainly don't advocate using everything in one campaign, but that's the DM's job as author of the campaign and referee of the ruleset. I've run Eberron games without Warforged because of the style of story I wanted to tell. They were still in existance, but never appeared on stage, so it doesn't matter.

4.) I don't get a dark fantasy feel from Eberron, or really a noir(in the classic sense) feeling either. To me it's really pulp and I'm not a big fan. YMMV of course.

I think the main thing with Eberron for me is that it's a big diverse setting. Karrnath is a lot darker than Breland for example. The Dreaming Dark campaign would be totally different than the Emerald Claw campaign. I think Sharn can run noir while XenDrik goes Pulp.

Of course, the vast majority of settings aren't used as written anyway. If a setting is 80% Eberron with house rules and customizing vs 20% Eberron added to a regular homebrew setting, I still think the books are worthwhile.